ISIS UNVEILED:

A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology

By H. P. Blavatsky

Blavatsky's first major work on theosophy, examining religion and science in the light of Western and Oriental ancient wisdom and occult and spiritualistic phenomena.

Theosophical University Press Online Edition (print version also available). Electronic version ISBN 1-55700-135-9. This edition may be downloaded for off-line viewing without charge.
For ease of searching, no diacritical marks appear in the electronic version of the text.

CONTENTS

VOLUME 1

Dogmatic assumptions of modern science and theology / The Platonic philosophy affords the only middle ground / Review of the ancient philosophical systems / A Syriac manuscript on Simon Magus / Glossary of terms used in this book

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Volume First: THE "INFALLIBILITY" OF MODERN SCIENCE.

The Oriental Kabala / Ancient traditions supported by modern research / The progress of mankind marked by cycles / Ancient cryptic science / Priceless value of the Vedas / Mutilations of the Jewish sacred books in translation / Magic always regarded as a divine science / Achievements of its adepts and hypotheses of their modern detractors / Man's yearning for immortality

The servility of society / Prejudice and bigotry of men of science / They are chased by psychical phenomena / Lost arts / The human will the master-force of forces / Superficial generalizations of the French savants / Mediumistic phenomena, to what attributable / Their relation to crime

One primal force, but many correlations / Tyndall narrowly escapes a great discovery / The impossibility of miracle / Nature of the primordial substance / Interpretation of certain ancient myths / Experiments of the fakirs / Evolution in Hindu allegory

The debt we owe to Paracelsus / Mesmerism — its parentage, reception, potentiality / "Psychometry" / Time, space, eternity / Transfer of energy from the visible to the invisible universe / The Crookes experiments and Cox theory

Attraction and repulsion universal in all the kingdoms of nature / Psychical phenomena depend on physical surroundings / Observations in Siam / Music in nervous disorders / The "world-soul" and its potentialities / Healing by touch, and healers / "Diakka" and Porphyry's bad demons / The quenchless lamp / Modern ignorance of vital force / Antiquity of the theory of force-correlation / Universality of belief in magic

Do the planets affect human destiny? / Very curious passage from Hermes / The restlessness of matter / Prophecy of Nostradamus fulfilled / Sympathies between planets and plants / Hindu knowledge of the properties of colors / "Coincidences" the panacea of modern science / The moon and the tides / Epidemic mental and moral disorders / The gods of the Pantheons only natural forces / Proofs of the magical powers of Pythagoras / The viewless races of ethereal space / The "four truths" of Buddhism

Meaning of the expression "coats of skin" / Natural selection and its results / The Egyptian "circle of necessity" / Pre-Adamite races / Descent of spirit into matter / The triune nature of man / The lowest creatures in the scale of being / Elementals specifically described / Proclus on the beings of the air / Various names for elementals / Swedenborgian views on soul-death / Earth-bound human souls / Impure mediums and their "guides" / Psychometry an aid to scientific research

Origin of the Egyptians / Their mighty engineering works / The ancient land of the Pharaohs / Antiquity of the Nilotic monuments / Arts of war and peace / Mexican myths and ruins / Resemblances to the Egyptian / Moses a priest of Osiris / The lessons taught by the ruins of Siam / The Egyptian Tau at Palenque

Acquisition of the "secret doctrine" / Two relics owned by a Pali scholar / Jealous exclusiveness of the Hindus / Lydia Maria Child on Phallic symbolism / The age of the Vedas and Manu / Traditions of pre-diluvian races / Atlantis and its peoples / Peruvian relics / The Gobi desert and its secrets / Thibetan and Chinese legends / The magician aids, not impedes, nature / Philosophy, religion, arts and sciences bequeathed by Mother India to posterity

Resemblance between early Christianity and Buddhism / Peter never in Rome / Meanings of "Nazar" and "Nazarene" / Baptism a derived right / Is Zoroaster a generic name? / Pythagorean teachings of Jesus / The Apocalypse kabalistic / Jesus considered an adept by some Pagan philosophers and early Christians / Doctrine of permutation / The meaning of God-Incarnate / Dogmas of the Gnostics / Ideas of Marcion, the "heresiarch" / Precepts of Manu / Jehovah identical with Bacchus

Discrepancies in the Pentateuch / Indian, Chaldean and Ophite systems compared / Who were the first Christians? / Christos and Sophia-Achamoth / Secret doctrine taught by Jesus / Jesus never claimed to be God / New Testament narratives and Hindu legends / Antiquity of the "Logos" and "Christ" / Comparative Virgin-worship

En-Soph and the Sephiroth / The primitive wisdom-religion / The book of Genesis a compilation of Old World legends / The Trinity of the Kabala / Gnostic and Nazarene systems contrasted with Hindu myths / Kabalism in the book of Ezekiel / Story of the resurrection of Jairus's daughter found in the history of Christna / Untrustworthy teachings of the early Fathers / Their persecuting spirit

Decisions of Nicean Council, how arrived at / Murder of Hypatia / Origin of the fish-symbol of Vishnu / Kabalistic doctrine of the Cosmogony / Diagrams of Hindu and Chaldeo-Jewish systems / Ten mythical Avatars of Vishnu / Trinity of man taught by Paul / Socrates and Plato on soul and spirit / True Buddhism, what it is

The Sohar and Rabbi Simeon / The Order of Jesuits and its relation to some of the Masonic orders / Crimes permitted to its members / Principles of Jesuitry compared with those of Pagan moralists / Trinity of man in Egyptian Book of the Dead / Freemasonry no longer esoteric / Persecution of Templars by the Church / Secret Masonic ciphers / Jehovah not the "Ineffable Name"

Nearly every myth based on some great truth / Whence the Christian Sabbath / Antiquity of the Vedas / Pythagorean doctrine of the potentialities of numbers / "Days" of Genesis and "Days" of Brahma / Fall of man and the Deluge in the Hindu books / Antiquity of the Mahabharata / Were the ancient Egyptians of the Aryan race? / Samuel, David, and Solomon mythical personages / Symbolism of Noah's Ark / The Patriarchs identical with zodiacal signs / All Bible legends belong to universal history

The devil officially recognized by the Church / Satan the mainstay of sacerdotalism / Identity of Satan with the Egyptian Typhon / His relation to serpent-worship / The Book of Job and the Book of the Dead / The Hindu devil a metaphysical abstraction / Satan and the Prince of Hell in the Gospel of Nicodemus

The age of philosophy produced no atheists / The legends of three Saviours / Christian doctrine of the Atonement illogical / Cause of the failure of missionaries to convert Buddhists and Brahmanists / Neither Buddha nor Jesus left written records / The grandest mysteries of religion in the Bagaved-gita / The meaning of regeneration explained in the Satapa-Brahmana / The sacrifice of blood interpreted / Demoralization of British India by Christian missionaries / The Bible less authenticated than any other sacred book / Knowledge of chemistry and physics displayed by Indian jugglers

Recapitulation of fundamental propositions / Seership of the soul and of the spirit / The phenomenon of the so-called spirit-hand / Difference between mediums and adepts / Interview of an English ambassador with a reincarnated Buddha / Flight of a lama's astral body related by Abbe Huc / Schools of magic in Buddhist lamaseries / The unknown race of Hindu Todas / Will-power of fakirs and yogis / Taming of wild beasts by fakirs / Evocation of a living spirit by a Shaman, witnessed by the writer / Sorcery by the breath of a Jesuit Father / Why the study of magic is almost impracticable in Europe / Conclusion